It had looked to be just another long and boring ceremony. Celestia was accustomed to such things. The throne room would fill with a throng of ponies, and she would look down on them from one of the balconies, indescribably bored. Her father would make a speech, and the hordes of adoring ponies would stare in rapt attention, awed into silence by the scarlet alicorn's words or the flowing fire that was the mane or something shiny nearby. The princess paid little attention to her father's subjects. There were more important things to think about. She daydreamed about finally being allowed to move the sun and the books waiting in her room and when her hair would start looking impressive like her father's. Solid pink manes looked cute on little fillies, but she was an adult; she'd been legally of age for months! She couldn't be taken seriously as her father's replacement without an awesome mane.
It had looked to be just another long and boring ceremony, but then Celestia's father got to the point. The king's rambling ended after a few words on homecoming, and his horn glowed. With a flash, two ponies appeared on the empty balcony across from the princess.
They were alicorns.
The voice of the king boomed in the silent hall, "The mission of diplomacy that my dearest wife undertook so many years ago has kept her from my side. What's more, I have never before seen my younger daughter. It was a pain that I bore in the knowledge that our Queen was forging a lasting peace and bonds of fraternal unity between all the equines of this world. She has succeeded beyond our wildest dreams. My family has endured this rift for you, my ponies! So welcome them! Welcome home my Queen and our younger daughter, Princess Luna!" He gestured to the royal pair with a hoof, and the throne room burst into deafening applause.
The queen's azure coat and flowing mane of blues and greens gave the impression of a living waterfall. Celestia recognized the tall and regal alicorn from old paintings; she had been too young when the queen left to have any real memories of her mother. Standing beside larger of the pair was Luna, the sister that Celestia had heard of, but never met.
The white alicorn had never seen an alicorn her size before. Her father towered over her, and her mother was the same. The young princesses were just a bit larger than normal ponies; they still had centuries of slow growth ahead. Luna's dark coat reminded Celestia of the late evening sky. She was jealous; pink and white was a juvenile combination, but those dusky blues had a regal dignity about them.
The cheering died down, and the king's speech continued, but Celestia did not take her eyes off of her sister. The princess wondered what the other alicorn was like, whether they would get along, and why the dark mare was so interested in the crowd. Hadn't Luna seen ponies before? She lost herself in thought and speculation.
And then, suddenly, the other princess looked up and met Celestia's gaze. She stared into the depths of those dark green orbs, and felt something change within her. Something she did not understand.
It felt good.
***
Celestia slipped away from the party as soon as she could. Crowds of ponies sucking up to her and trying to use her to get closer to the king did not interest the young alicorn in the least. She made an appearance for her father's sake, was pleased to note that the thick crowds around her mother and sister took some of the burden off of her, and was on her way out within half an hour.
Her magic allowed her to slip through an enchanted false wall in the grand ballroom, and she was off through the twisting inner ways of the castle. Occasionally, Celestia would pass through a common hall or some suite of rooms, flying up to a passage tucked away behind a tapestry or pushing open a secret door with a strength that matched any Earth pony. There were many secret ways in the castle, but only an alicorn could pass through all of them. In short order, she'd found her way as far from the crowds and the noise as she could; she stepped onto a balcony overlooking the royal gardens and took a deep breath of fresh forest air.
The sun was barely beginning to set, but the princess found that night was waiting for her in the garden. Standing among the precisely arranged flowers and the painstakingly sculpted hedges was a now-familiar dark blue alicorn. Luna looked up at her after a moment and shouted, "Hello there, sister!" The dark mare's voice had the high pitch of a much smaller pony; Celestia found it to be endearingly adorable.
"Hello," the elder sister replied weakly. They stared at each other for a few seconds. Luna pawed at the dirt with a hoof. Celestia shifted her weight from side to side.
Finally, the younger alicorn shouted again, "Uh... aren't you going to come down?"
The pink-maned pony blinked. "Oh! Yeah." She leapt from the balcony, spreading her wings and gliding in a wide arc over the rows and mazes of tended plants. She landed a few paces from her sister. "Sorry...."
Luna giggled, "There's nothing to apologize for."
Celestia rubbed the back of her head with a hoof, looking around. She tried to think of something to say, but found nothing. This was her long lost sister; shouldn't she have a lot of questions? Eventually, one just sort of slipped out, "How'd you get here so quickly?"
The other alicorn's voice took on a mischievous tone, "That... is a secret." Luna disappeared with a flash and reappeared behind her older sister, who turned to stare in shock. The dark mare continued, "I'll never tell."
Celestia gaped at the other mare, "You already know teleportation? I'm so jealous! Father refuses to teach me until I'm," her voice deepened with mock-seriousness, "'far more responsible and able to handle such an exploitable spell without infringing upon blah blah blah blah.'"
Luna threw her head back, laughing. The sight made Celestia smile. Soon enough, the younger alicorn calmed and spoke, "Mom always let me learn whatever I could from the locals. The Hydraxes of the lone mountain mastered teleportation magic long ago; they taught me a few tricks. They're tiny and unfathomably cute, but their magic is something else."
"I've read about the Hydraxes!" Celestia gushed, "One of my favorite legends is the tale of Hyracoid. I think I've gone over that book a half dozen times."
Luna tilted her head, "Do you read a lot?"
The white alicorn sat in the manicured grass, "It's just about all I do. Science, history, philosophy, literature. Give me a book and I'm a happy pony."
"You know, there are a lot of places out there without any books at all," Luna said, and snorted at the look of shock and horror on her sister's face,
"No books! How do they... learn... and stuff?" Celestia finished weakly.
"Knowledge gets recorded all sorts of ways," the younger princess fell to her haunches in imitation of her sister and her eyes turned absentmindedly skyward. She continued, "The zebra tribes have an impressive oral tradition; some of their epic poems have been passed down for millennia! The goats of the far mountains carve their writings into cliffs with their horns, in letters as tall as they are. It takes years to get through a sentence, and their longest stories were written by whole herds working together. They say that dragons also record their knowledge on stone, but it only takes one of them to write an epic. They have almost as much longevity as an alicorn!
"The Manatees of the Great Reef and the Peccaries on the coast have the most interesting method. The Manatees dredge clay off the ocean floor, form it into tablets, and then take it to the shallows. There, scribes of both races use styluses to cut words into the wet surfaces. Once they're done, the Peccaries bake the clay, cover them in a glaze, and then bake them again. The glaze they use is mostly transparent, but it looks red when it's thick, so when the glaze seeps into the cuts, it forms red writing on the grey tablets. The scribes end up with long lasting, waterproof records that can be passed back and forth between the Peccaries on the land and the Manatees in the sea without any issue. The most interesting part is that the Manatees can only speak underwater and the Peccaries can only speak in the air; they use the same written language but can't talk to one another verbally!"
Celestia gaped at her sister. "Wow... really? That's unreal. Are you trying to make me look like a foal?" she asked, raising an eyebrow.
"It's the truth. Cross my heart and hope to fly."
The elder alicorn uttered a single, "Wow." before falling silent. She'd have to study foreign cultures more; her ignorance of the subject was embarrassing. She looked around, searching for something different to talk about. Finally, her eyes settled on the sun, which was just dipping below the horizon. "I wonder how long it'll be before father lets me control the sun," She murmured.
"Any time now, I expect," Luna said, "Mom left the moon to me over a year ago, so I could practice with her around. Father only has a few months to train you, if he hasn't started yet."
"A few months?" Celestia asked, turning to look at the other alicorn. She tilted her head, brows furrowing, "What do you mean by that?"
"The Empire?" The dark mare prompted, "You know? The coronation date?"
"What." The elder sister replied flatly.
Luna raised an eyebrow and spoke more slowly, "When mother takes her position as Empress to preside over the Diet of the Holy Ungulate Empire and Equestria becomes a principality."
"What?"
The younger sister frowned, "The Holy Ungulate Empire? That mom spent the last sixteen years or so building? Perhaps you've heard of it?" She seemed to take Celestia's look of blank incomprehension as an answer. Luna let out an exasperated sigh, "Mom and father are going to be Empress and Emperor of the unified ruling body for the countries of all the hoofed peoples. They're turning Equestria into a principality, leaving responsibility for the sun and moon with us, and crowning you to rule in their place."
"What!?"
Luna gaped at her sister for a moment, then shouted, "How could you not know!? Mom told me the plan years ago! Our father spent half an hour of his speech going on and on about it! It's all any of the nobles at that infernal mockery of a party could talk about!"
Celestia felt her face contort as a wave of horror overtook her, "Why doesn't anypony tell me about these things!?"
The dark alicorn covered her face with a hoof and just shook her head.
Celestia grappled with memories of things she hadn't really paid any attention to. She recalled bits and pieces, and they all seemed to fit with her sister's revelation. She began to babble in a panic, "I can't run a country. I don't know how taxes work. I can barely get my own servants to do what I want! Administration is practically the only thing I haven't studied. I'm more of a professor than a princess! Can't I just teach? That's what I've always wanted. Father is practically immortal; I didn't think I'd ever have to take over for him." She stopped, blinked for a moment, then brought her hoof to her forehead with a resounding clop, "Oh, of course! Why else would an undying king need an heir?" She scoffed, suddenly disgusted, "That means we were bred as replacements from the start!"
The white alicorn paused. "I don't really know how to feel about that," she said. She turned to her sister.
For some reason, Luna had a look on her face that was a mixture of confusion, amusement, and pity. Only the amusement tinged her tone as she spoke, "Well you're not going to get me to take your place. The last thing I want to do is rule... but good luck with that."
Celestia sighed. "Father could at least have taught me how to move the sun before springing this all of a sudden." She hung her head and glared at the ground.
Luna walked toward her sister. She put a hoof under the older mare's chin and lifted it until their eyes were able to meet. Then she smiled, "Hey, cheer up. This is our first meeting; I don't want it to leave you in a bad mood. I don't know how to move the sun, but it's about time for the moon to rise. How about I teach you how to do it, so you can feel what it's like to move one of the celestial bodies?"
Celestia knew that her grin was probably wide enough to look goofy, but she was too delighted by the offer to care. It stayed with her practically the whole evening, as the sisters delved into magic that ran the clockwork of the cosmos.
***
"I was wondering when you would show up."
Celestia turned to look for the source of the voice, and Luna stepped out of hiding. The dark alicorn had blended perfectly into the deep shadows cast by the full moon. Once again the white alicorn cursed her coloration; the pink of her mane would draw eyes like a moth to a flame if anypony else was around to see it.
In response to her sister's words, the elder princess snorted, amused, and whispered, "And a pleasant greeting to you too, Luna. I see they haven't gotten around to the lessons on etiquette yet. How has your first month in the castle been? Restrictive enough for you? I trust that you're sufficiently bored. This'll probably be just about the only chance you'll get to talk to me before the coronation. Well, talk to me without our Father breathing down our necks, at least."
Luna chuckled lightly. "It's not so bad. Mom seems to give me a lot more freedom than father gives you. I come out here just about every night; I've seen a lot of palace gardens in my time, but this one is my favorite."
"Oh? Why?" Celestia asked.
The younger mare put a hoof to her chin, seeming to consider the question. After a time, she said, "I don't know. Oh well."
Celestia shook her head slowly. "Whatever. It's my favorite too, and this is the first time I've been able to visit since the day you got here. My life has become a parade of tutors and advisers and...," she stuck her tongue out and made a disgusted face as she spat, "Tax codes."
"So they let you have a night off?" Luna asked.
Her sister's eyes darted from side to side as she replied, "Not as such, no...."
She gasped, "You snuck out! A couple of months from the throne and you're still a rule breaker. I knew there was a reason I liked you."
Celestia shushed the other mare and whispered urgently, "Not so loud. I can't even begin to fathom what father will do if he finds out that I'm in not sleeping like I'm supposed to."
Luna tilted her head. "Then why did you sneak out?"
The white alicorn sighed. "Good question. I guess I just want to be free for a bit longer. I can't stop thinking about how much I let life pass me by. I thought I'd have so long before I took the throne. All father does is go to meetings and make speeches and shake hooves with nobles and dignitaries. And I'm going to have live that life. The life of eternal boredom."
"I'm sure it's not that bad; he seems to handle it just fine," Luna reasoned.
"But he's so boring," Celestia groaned. "I'm never going to be able to act like a foal again. To just play a game and have fun. It'll be 'state business' this and 'diplomatic relations' that. You're just going to work the moon and help prevent me from embarrassing myself when diplomats from other nations of the Empire visit. That still leaves plenty of time for fun."
"Well," the dark alicorn said, "you can still enjoy the time you have left, right?"
Her sister sighed. "How?"
Luna grinned mischievously. "I have an idea. How about we play a game?"
"What sort of game?" Celestia asked.
"How about 'catch'?" the younger mare offered.
"I've never heard of it. How do we play?"
Luna spread her wings. She spoke in a dull, uninterested tone, "I learned how to play from gryphons. It's very simple; there's not much to it." She paused to stretch her wings, rotating them in the sockets. Celestia merely watched, waiting for an explanation or demonstration. "First one gryphon takes off," the dark mare said before leaping into the air with a powerful flap of her wings. She flew quite quickly away from the castle as she yelled back over her shoulder. "And the other one tries to catch her!"
For a moment, Celestia stared up at the receding dot that was her sister. Then she blinked, figured out what had just happened, and grinned. The princess launched herself skyward with all the force she could muster, barreling toward her fleeing target.
The pair soared through the night, quickly leaving the castle behind. Celestia steadily gained on the other mare in the open air, but Luna dove toward the forest below, tucking her wings as she disappeared into the canopy. The white alicorn followed closely, feeling her feathers graze against wood. She leveled out beneath the branches of the tall, stately trees that dominated that corner of the Everfree, barreling through the woods at a dangerous speed.
The princess channeled magic into her horn to illuminate her path, and rolled quickly as her light revealed a trunk directly ahead. Celestia righted herself and began to weave through the woods. She would have lost Luna in the dense growth, if she hadn't spotted an indigo light, weaving back and forth in the distance. Grinning with exhilaration, she gave chase.
Celestia quickly caught up with her sister, but could not manage to close the final few hooflengths. Luna's wings fluttered as the alicorn seemed to dance effortlessly around the trunks, avoiding obstacles by a feather's breadth. The elder mare could not match the grace of her quarry, and was often forced to take a wider path. No matter how hard Celestia tried, Luna stayed just out of reach.
And then they burst into a wide meadow. Celestia saw her opportunity and took it. With a final, frantic effort, she put on enough speed to bite her sister's tail. She spread her wings to slow herself, but only managed to ruin Luna's balance and lose her grip on the dark mare. The two of them tumbled through the air for a moment before each remembered to use magic.
They stopped, surrounded by an aura of shifting light and dark patches. Luna had ended up floating upside-down under Celestia, their legs entwined. Each mare realized that the other alicorn could easily handle keeping them afloat alone and that they'd never get anywhere working levitation at cross purposes. Of course, neither gave voice to her conclusion. Simultaneously, they released their magic.
Luna fell a few inches onto soft grass. Celestia was able to spread her legs and land on her hooves. She looked down at her sister with wide eyes, her heart still pounding with the exhilaration of the chase. Twin gleams of moonlight in the darkness were the only sign that the other mare returned her gaze. The white alicorn slowly caught her breath.
Eventually, Celestia was compelled to speak, "I've caught you."
Luna's answer was low, but her sister could hear the smile in it, "You have."
"What happens when the one who flew away is caught?" The elder princess whispered.
"Whatever the one who caught her feels like," came a breathy reply from below.
The one thing Celestia felt like doing was the one thing she knew was wrong. Still, she couldn't help but play the game. She lowered her head, and her lips met Luna's.
